[SOLVED] BSOD, and NVMe SSD No Longer Showing in BIOS ?

[baileyboy125]

Hi There,

Yesterday I got a BSOD with the error DPC_Watchdog_Violation. My PC then restarted and it prompted me to install a boot device. I restarted the machine and went into the BIOS where I found that my boot drive was no longer showing, it's a Samsung 970 Pro 512 GB NVMe SSD bought about 1.5 years ago.

My motherboard (Gigabyte X399 Designare EX) has two NVMe slots and I have two NVMe drives. The other Sabrent NVMe drive appeared fine in the BIOS. I tried swapping both drives to see if it might have been the motherboard, but the Samsung still did not show.

I loaded up a separate drive with an installation of windows to check if I could see it in disk management but still nope. I reset the CMOS and it still did not show. I even updated my BIOS, but again, still a no-show.

The only thing I've not done is plug this into a different machine since other than this computer I only have a laptop. I will try and get an external enclosure for an M.2 NVMe drive.

Are there any other things I can try on my end, or is the SSD completely dead?

 

[Lutfij]

So you're on BIOS version F12? If so, try working with only the Samsung drive standalone on the slots in your motherboard. Can you take the culprit SSD over to a donor system that has an available M.2 PCIe based slot for your to test/try out and confirm that the drive itself is dead? If the drive does come up on your donor system, at this point, use Samsung's Magician App/tool and check to see if the drive is pending any firmware updates.

As for your OS, what version of Windows 10 are you operating on? Ideally you should be on version 21H1.

 

[baileyboy125]

So you're on BIOS version F12? If so, try working with only the Samsung drive standalone on the slots in your motherboard. Can you take the culprit SSD over to a donor system that has an available M.2 PCIe based slot for your to test/try out and confirm that the drive itself is dead? If the drive does come up on your donor system, at this point, use Samsung's Magician App/tool and check to see if the drive is pending any firmware updates.

As for your OS, what version of Windows 10 are you operating on? Ideally you should be on version 21H1.

Hi Lutfij,

Yep, I updated my BIOS to F12 whilst trying to fix this. Previously it was on F11.
I've tried with just the Samsung NVMe installed and the BIOS showed no drives.
Windows 10 on this secondary drive is 12H1. As for the NVMe, I'm not sure, and I can't access it to have a look.
I don't have any other systems with an M.2 slot in them, will an external enclosure work in this case? As mentioned previously, the motherboard has two M.2 slots. The Samsung NVMe doesn't show up in either of them whereas another NVMe shows up on both.

EDIT: Tried in an external caddy on another computer. Drive does not show up. I tried the caddy with a different NVMe and it works fine, so the drive is definitely the one at fault.

 

[baileyboy125]

UPDATE:
I sent the drive to a data recovery specialist to get a diagnosis and was told the following:

Every indication is, that it has an internal firmware issue. The device passes ALL power tests, but simply holds a constant ‘Busy’ state. This would strongly suggest an internal firmware (most likely ‘Translator’ issue) that will need to be addressed correctly to gain logical access to the data.
The ‘downside’ is, that it has a currently unsupported S4LR020 main controller, and cannot be reliably worked with at a firmware level by any of our tooling providers at present, so a full diagnostics / repair cannot be performed.

They go on to say that until there is SK Hynix controller support nothing can be done other than trying to replace components, but that comes at the risk of causing irrecoverable damage. I will hold off on repair for now.